


No Strings (except the one around my heart)

by Ghost_in_the_Hella



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Awkward Teenage Feelings, F/F, Hurt and comfort, Messy emotions, amberprice, angsty amberprice, hella sweary, partying too hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 01:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18768202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_in_the_Hella/pseuds/Ghost_in_the_Hella
Summary: Rachel drags Chloe to a party, then disappears. Chloe doesn't handle it well.





	No Strings (except the one around my heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy last day of... do we have a term yet for the three days in May over which BtS takes place? Stormy Days? Awkward Teenage Queer Dating Sim Days? Anyway, happy last day of that! A few days ago I passed 100 followers on tumblr so I asked folks how they wanted me to celebrate. I got two "whatever you want to write"s and one request for an Amberprice fic, so this is my thank you for the amazing folks who follow me on tumblr with a special shout-out to fairymascot, stretch802, and gaspacho4 for their feedback. Um... sorry it's so angsty? Written over about three days and unbeta'd, so apologies if it's not super polished. It just kinda poured out of me.
> 
> And a friendly reminder for those who don't read tags, this is Amberprice and takes BtS as canon, so if you don't like those things you might not like this story. I've got more Pricefield in the works and the next chapter of Now That the World is Over should be out soon, so you might be happier sitting tight 'til then. For those who are into Amberprice and BtS, please enjoy, and yeah... sorry about all the angstiness.

If there’s one thing Chloe knows with crystal clarity, it’s that she doesn’t belong here. And that’s pretty much all she does know clearly, because everything else got fuzzy as hell three beers and half a spiked punch bowl ago. If she manages to forget it for more than five seconds - lost in the too bright lights, lost in the too loud and too trendy music, lost in how fucking good Rachel looks tonight - then no worries, there’s always somebody there to remind her with a pointed word or a withering glare. There’s always somebody there to give her an appraising look and find her immediately lacking, someone to look at her shabby clothes and turn to snicker into a friend’s waiting ear, someone to jostle her shoulder just hard enough to spill her drink and then smirk instead of apologize. Someone to put her in her place.

And it’s fine, really. Fuck these assholes. Who cares what they think? Who cares what they whisper in each other’s ears when they look at her, judging her while they’re wearing clothes that probably cost more than her entire house? The only person here whose opinion matters in the slightest is Rachel, anyway. Chloe’s only here for her.

Trouble is, Rachel fucked off an hour ago to who-the-fuck-knows-where. Swallowed by the sea of people who all scowl at Chloe like she’s a shitstain on the carpet (and maybe she is: she didn’t bother wiping her boots before coming in because seriously fuck these assholes). It was easy enough to feel like she belonged when Rachel was there, hand hot and sweaty in her own as she dragged her from room to room and mindless conversation to mindless conversation. It was easy as hell to feel like she belonged when they were together on the dance floor, music buzzing through them like the first night they hung out, Rachel’s body close to hers and moving against her with the beat, Rachel’s hands fluttering over her skin like butterflies never quite sure where to land.

But then she disappeared, and Chloe went from pleasantly buzzed to drunk-off-her-ass pretty quickly after that. Everything’s too close, too hot, all these strange bodies pressed all around her, people she doesn’t know or wishes she didn’t. Everything’s spinning just a little too much. But it’s not enough, because Chloe can still feel the weight of the eyes on her, can still feel Rachel’s absence a little too acutely, so she heads for the kitchen to find another drink. Or two. Or five.

She finds Rachel instead.

Rachel’s between Chloe and the booze, and some fucking sasquatch in a letterman jacket is between Chloe and Rachel. Rachel’s laughing, she’s got her hand on his arm but she’s not pushing him away, and she’s letting him kiss her neck, and it’s fine.

It’s okay.

This is what they agreed on. No strings. Just fun, just fooling around, just blowing off steam. No strings.

No strings except for the one wrapped so tightly around Chloe’s chest it feels like it’s going to slice her in half.

No strings except for the one yanking her back out of the kitchen, wrenching her straight into the throbbing heart of the party where it is mercifully too loud to think, too loud to feel.

She finds some rich kids doing shots in the living room. She hears something that might be Rachel’s voice rising up over the music but is probably just her wishful thinking. She doesn’t ask if she can join, just grabs a shot glass and empties it. Then another. Then another.

Things aren’t fuzzy anymore. They’re more like a smear. It’s all color and sound and spinning and lights. Maybe she does belong here after all. Another shot glass is thrust into her hand. It doesn’t even burn on the way down anymore.

Hands hot on her arm, Rachel’s voice in her ear, but she shakes it off. Chloe didn’t even want to come here in the first place. Why would Rachel drag her here and then stop her from having any fun? What’s the fucking _point_?

Kegstand in the garage. Might as well: everything’s upside-down anyway. When did she get outside?

Tangled in the bushes. Somebody puked. Probably her. Nevermind; a red cup of beer is pressed into her hand as some blurry dude pulls her back out. She rinses and spits.

The den is surprisingly comfortable. The couches are really nice leather, probably skinned off a racehorse or some shit. The bong is the most crazy-ornate thing she’s ever seen. Too bad it’s too big to smuggle out in her pocket; it’d probably pay for college tuition if she hocked it. If she were going to college. If she weren’t a fuckup dropout loser.

Blurry dude - same one from before? - kisses her between lungfulls of smoke. His friends are snickering and calling her trailer trash. He’s not a bad kisser, really. But he’s not Rachel, and kissing him doesn’t make the string around her heart cut into the flesh any less. If anything it cuts deeper. The bong shatters. He calls her a crazydykebitchcuntwhoremotherfucker and she laughs. Someone pulls her away before blurry dude and his friends can kick her ass. It’s kind of a shame. She’d almost like to be beaten into the ground tonight. Make her look on the outside the way she feels on the inside.

A bathroom that’s bigger than her bedroom at home. Too clean, too white: the light hurts her eyes. Gentle hands sweeping the sweaty hair back from her face as she empties her stomach again and again into the toilet, praying to the porcelain gods until her eyes are leaking tears.

Rachel. Soft hands and softer words. She rubs between Chloe’s shoulder blades until she stops heaving. Fills a small paper cup with water and tells her to drink it slow. Refills it again and again, like the shot glass only softer. Washes Chloe’s hands so tenderly the cuts almost don’t even sting. Places a kiss over each band-aid she applies. Presses one soft kiss against her lips, despite how she must taste.

So soft it hurts.

When Chloe wakes up, it takes her whole minutes to piece together where she is. She’s in a bedroom she’s pretty sure she’s never seen before. It’s huge, the bed so big she feels lost in it. She can’t hear the thumping music that pulsed through her head all night, so it takes her a bit to realize she’s still at the party. Only the party must be over. There’s daylight streaming in through the gauzy window dressings. She’s still a little drunk, but not drunk enough to not also be hungover. Her mouth tastes like something died in it. Her brain feels so swollen it might crack her skull and run out her nose.

The room is spinning - slowly, but spinning nonetheless - and her eyes hurt, so she closes them and tries to focus on breathing without throwing up. She’s fairly confident she’s done that already, judging by the soreness in her throat and the taste on her tongue. The night floats through her mind in fragments. Whole chunks are missing. Big ones.

She runs her hands over her body. She’s wearing clothes, at least, so that’s something. Her palms itch. She cracks her eyes open to look at them and stares dazedly at the band-aids for a few long seconds before her eyes hurt too much and she has to close them again. She remembers the handsy blur with the bong, the way he kissed her like she existed for no other purpose, like she meant nothing at all. The way his friends mocked her the whole time. She remembers Rachel in the bathroom, soft and quiet and infinitely patient. She doesn’t remember anything after that.

She starts patting the bed next to her, unsure who or what she expects to encounter. The sheets feel expensive. She feels like she’s soiling them just by laying in them. She probably is; she must be a mess. Doesn’t matter. Whoever can afford a place like this can afford new sheets.

The bed is empty next to her. She grudgingly opens her eyes again and checks more carefully. The bed’s big: she could easily have missed something. Someone. But there’s no one. Just Chloe and her brain-splitting hangover.

She’s trying to figure out if the feeling in her stomach is relief, despair, or just leftover nausea when the sound of a toilet flushing nearby grabs her attention. The world beyond the bed is still slipping in and out of focus in the harsh light of day, but she can make out a door where the sound is coming from. An en suite bathroom, rich motherfuckers know how to live. She wonders vaguely what state she left it in last night as she listens to the running water of somebody washing their hands.

The last person she remembers seeing is Rachel. She’s not sure if she hopes it’s Rachel in the bathroom, because she doesn’t want Rachel to see her like this but she also doesn’t want to see anybody else.

The bathroom door opens and there she is, her face washed clean of makeup and her clothes looking slept in but still every bit as beautiful as she was last night. “Ah,” Rachel says when she sees Chloe’s open eyes, “she _lives_.”

Chloe groans in response, words being beyond her capability.

Rachel slips back into the bathroom, rattles around in the cabinet for a few seconds before she returns with a paper cup of water and a pill. She perches at the edge of the bed and extends her hands to Chloe. Chloe drags herself over, grateful and begrudging all at once. Rachel rubs her back soothingly as she swallows the pill with a wince. “So, Sleeping Beauty, how’re you feeling?” Rachel’s tone is light, but there’s something vulnerable beneath it. It stills Chloe’s tongue when her first impulse is to respond with snark. Instead she just slides silently back down until she’s lying on her side. Rachel sets the empty cup on the bedside table and joins her, staring quietly into her eyes.

Chloe stares back. Her head still feels like it might explode, but it’s distant now. Rachel’s eyes are so fucking beautiful. She could stare into them forever and never be sure just what color they are. Never quite green and never quite brown, but something that hovers in-between, lovely and precarious. It seems to change with every blink of her eyes. Right now, they’re tinged with concern that Rachel doesn’t even bother to hide.

Chloe tugs at the bongwater-stained front of her own shirt and forces out a chuckle. “Guess I made a pretty big splash last night, huh?” Her voice is gravel, rough and painful in her throat.

Cool fingers reach across the space between them to brush against Chloe’s face. They trace the curve of her jaw, the slope of her cheekbone, the line of her eyebrow. Gentle and slow, as though afraid Chloe will break. Which is so utterly fucked, because if anything is going to break Chloe, it’s this gentleness. “Yeah,” Rachel agrees quietly, “I guess you did.”

“I’d’ve been okay, you know.” Chloe doesn’t know why she feels compelled to say it, especially since she’s not at all convinced that it’s true. “I can hold my own.”

Rachel rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t stop touching her. She glides a finger down the length of Chloe’s nose, runs it lightly over her lips like the ghost of a kiss. “You _could_ just say ‘thank you.’” Even through her sarcasm, there’s no bite to her words. Chloe must’ve really been a trainwreck last night for Rachel to be acting this way. No complaints about her ruined night, no digs about the spectacle Chloe must’ve made of herself; only genuine concern and more tenderness than Chloe deserves.

Chloe can’t remember, but she can picture it easily enough; she’s been on the other side of it once or twice before. Rachel finding them someplace safe and quiet to crash. Hauling her to it, probably either as dead weight or maybe flailing and attempting to protest her care. Watching her sleep, staying awake for as long as she can, keeping her phone close at hand just in case. Making sure she’s not going to choke on her own vomit in her sleep. Making sure she’s still breathing.

She could say ‘thank you,’ but the words lodge in her throat. Instead she reaches out and mirrors Rachel’s touch, brushing disheveled strands of blonde hair away from Rachel’s face and sweeping them behind her ear. She toys with the blue feather of Rachel’s earring, drawing out the first real smile she’s seen from Rachel this morning. Her fingers dip lower to trace over the marks on Rachel’s neck and that smile falters almost imperceptibly.

Rachel catches Chloe’s hand in her own and holds it still. Chloe’s palm stings a little at the contact, but she doesn’t resist. Rachel’s eyes pry into her own, asking questions Chloe knows she’s already answered without meaning to. Rachel won’t ever ask them out loud, but she doesn’t need to. Chloe knows she can’t help but answer with every look, every touch, every breath. She can feel the string around her heart as clearly as she did last night, but with Rachel so close it doesn’t feel like it’s cutting her apart. It feels like it’s holding her together. It might be the only thing that is. She closes her eyes, afraid to give anything more away, and focuses instead on the feeling of Rachel’s pulse against the palm of her hand.

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first thing I've written in a while that's neither related to my thesis (which is finished, hooray!) nor looking for a job (still ongoing, not-so-hooray!), so it was a nice respite to write something without agonizing over every word and revising it to death. Thanks for your patience while I shake the fanfic rust off. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated. This should go without saying, but based on my last Amberprice fic experience: please keep in mind that I am a real human being with real feelings and be respectful when commenting. (This is true of all fanfic writers, incidentally.)


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